By Nasiru Mohammed

Defiant and determined, the force against the Chief of Staff to the President, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, are not unfamiliar, writes Nasiru Mohammed.

Anyone who knows the Chief of Staff to the president, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, fairly enough, will always scoff at the many nonsenses so far alleged against his name. At best, these false narratives have only fed the starving political hawks their desperate meals, in and outside government. But none truthfully speaks to who he truly is.

I’m one of the many people, who can confidently speak about the character of this man, both from close and remote quarters, and I pride in it. I knew him from the moment he ventured into politics and I’d followed his trajectory up until now, even though we do not share any personal relationship. This, however, is why I have learnt to laugh off the swirling misrepresentation about his person.

On Tuesday, October 8, the THISDAY newspaper did an interesting piece on the ‘notoriously’ popular Chief of Staff to the President. I describe him as notoriously popular because if you’ve followed the sort of things since said and written about him on assumption of his current office, there’s the tendency to believe he was some preternatural creature capable of the impossible.

But he is not. At least, if there was anything that the article did – as objective and critical as it was – it established that Hon. Gbajabiamila is just another passenger – like you and I – in the corridors of power, doing his job to the best of his ability.

This is not to say he is infallible. Of course, he is and does not pretend to be either. But if we must point out anything about him or his management of the affairs of his current office, we have a responsibility to be as honest as possible. After all, facts don’t lie.

The culture of demonising people, especially those in sensitive political offices in order to make others feel good, is a fiendish culture that everyone must rise in unison against, because it is definitely antithetical to our collective growth, progress and development.

The cliché: “There’s no smoke without fire” is as plane as it is tricky. This is why circumspection is instructive when leveling allegations against others. At the minimum, an average right-thinking individual is expected to build a level of safety into whatever assumptions they’re  peddling or fondling with.  

Unfortunately, in the case of Gbajabiamila, there’s no allegation so far leveled against him that has been established anywhere. Isn’t that curious? When the president came public to declare support for his chief of staff, doesn’t it suggest to any critical mind that such could have been informed by the findings of security investigations on the man?

Observing closely from a vantage position, it is becoming crystal clearer that the forces against Gbajabiamila are a legion and may not give up easily or anytime soon. This is why I have identified them as the “resident forces” because they are mostly not just within but ‘living’ with him, somewhat.

For the record, the forces are three in categories. The first category is made up of people I choose to call the “envious lot”. They do not hide the fact that they envy ‘the man’ that Gbajabiamila has become and desire to be like him. An average successful person goes about with such enemies, and it’s almost natural that such people accompany obvious success at all times.

This particular category of haters has followed his trajectory from day one, unknown to him, and had always wanted what he has. They could not comprehend why it has always been him because they consider his feats a function of luck and not hard work. Either way, they could not come to terms with why neither luck nor hard work gave them a chance, too.

Category number two consists of people who are trending at the moment. For the purposes of this intervention, call them the “Ambitious few”. They are the people who want his current job. Why must it be him again? After spending so many years in the House of Representatives with meteoric progression that saw him become the speaker, should he get this all-important job again?

Rather than ask his principal the reason he settled for him as against them, they aligned with those in category one to further escalate their enmity and make his work more difficult. But they forget that unless the man who appointed him feels otherwise, they have no say in the choice of his personal staff, more so one as critical as the chief of staff.

Welcome to the third category of the resident forces, and please feel free to identify this last but not least category as the “political mind-readers”. This is just another very interesting class of people. From speakership to chief of staff, this third category has concluded, perhaps, having seen the future with their crystal ball, that Gbajabiamila’s next stop is the Lagos governorship.